April 2016: Global Arab and Arabic Literature Events

March 31

From Alef: “We are starting a new Arabic Book Club, which will meet monthly at our store in Baker Street, London. The first meeting will be at the end of March, we made a vote and the book chosen for the meetup is (Fe’ran Omy Hessa) by Seoud Alsanousi.

“Join us to discuss the book and evaluate the author’s perception and his way of writting.” Details here.

Egyptian Arts Festival D-Caf (Cairo, Egypt)

Runs from March 31- April 22, it will feature — among many other things — a discussion with Egyptian playwright Laila Soliman. Details here.

April 2

April 4

The Siege, one of The Freedom Theatre’s most successful productions to date, will be re-staged during the theatre’s ten-year anniversary celebrations in April 2016. The Siege will be performed at The Freedom Theatre on April 4 and 5, at 17:00. Festival and forum continue through April 9. Details here.

Khaled Khalifa (Naples, Italy)

The great Syrian author celebrates the launch of his latest book. Details here.

April 5

Khaled Khalifa (Rome, Italy)

The great Syrian author celebrates the launch of his latest book. Details here.

April 7

Khaled Khalifa (Rome, Italy)

The great Syrian author celebrates the launch of his latest book. Details here.

April 8

Khaled Khalifa (Florence, Italy)

The great Syrian author celebrates the launch of his latest book. Details here.

April 9

Khaled Khalifa (Milan, Italy)

The great Syrian author celebrates the launch of his latest book. Details here.

April 12

An Overview of Emirati Literature (London, England)

Mohammed Al Murr, a renowned short story writer from the United Arab Emirates, with two collections translated into English, talks about Emirati Literature today. Mr. Al Murr is also Head of the Dubai Cultural Council. In conversation with Bill Swainson, Literary Consultant. To be held from 1-2pm at the London Book Fair’s Literature Translation Centre.

Jordan’s National Gallery of Fine Arts will host the launch of The Perception of Meaning — recipient of the 2014 University of Arkansas Arabic Translation Award, for Bustani and Thoraya El-Rayyes — and recently published in a bilingual edition. Details here.

April 13

April 18

Postcolonial Studies and Modern Arabic Literature (Abu Dhabi, UAE)

Convened by Wail Hassan and Robert Young, this “conference brings together eminent literary scholars and critics to consider the relevance of postcolonial theory to modern Arabic literature, the translation of Euro-American theory into Arabic, the shortcomings of such theory that attention to modern Arabic literature reveals, the ways in which contemporary Arabic criticism can dialog with Euro-American literary theory, and the limits and opportunities of the postcolonial paradigm as a gateway into “world literature” as a network of circulation and reading.” Through April 19. Details here.

April 25

Arabic Shakespeare: Three Lessons (Bristol, England)

“Why and how have Arab writers and theatre directors since 1900 deployed Shakespeare’s plays? Where did they get their Shakespeare to begin with? Setting aside the clichés about Shakespeare’s alleged “universality,” this talk explores several episodes from the Arab Shakespeare tradition to show how they can illuminate not only the Arab theatre world but, more broadly, the interplay between international art forms, local expressive needs, and the historically weighted ties between modern literary cultures.” Details here.

April 26

Winner of International Prize for Arabic Fiction Announced (Abu Dhabi, UAE)

“Attracted to the Orient and ambivalent about European modernity, Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) made a perhaps paradoxical bearer of modern literary forms. Why, then, did Arab readers receive him as a great harbinger of social and artistic progress? Why did the Mufti of Egypt write to inform him, “The light of your thought has illuminated us, and the suns of your ideas have risen in our skies”? Why did The Kreutzer Sonata, a bizarre polemical novella, get translated into Arabic long before any of Tolstoy’s other fiction? On Tolstoy’s death in 1910, why did Arab poets compete to eulogize him? And how did later Arab writers deploy his oeuvre and his personal legacy? Attending to the contingencies and ironies that mark all international literary reception, this talk will explore some of the resources that Tolstoy’s long and tangled career offered to would-be modernizers of Arab societies and Arabic literature.” Details here.

Author Saleem Haddad (New York City, USA)

Second Tuesday Lecture: Reading from Guapa, a presentation, and a Q&A. Details here.